March 11: Letters to the Editor

March 10, 2012

No legal standing

Re: "Poor protest protocol," March 7. In response to the "heavy handed" treatment at the Capitol. Do the words trespass and unlawful assembly still carry any meaning? In your own words, these demonstrators refused to move from the granite steps of the South Portico. As you point out, their permit was for the Bell Tower, period.

We can not pick and choose which laws we will abide by. A posted speed limit, failure to stop at red lights and other such laws that are in place, are there for the purpose of order, they are not suggestions.

It is irresponsible for this newspaper to advocate breaking the law.

Michael Hill

Newport News

Support for quality

Re: your editorial "It is broken, so let's fix it"

It appears that your four-point plan for finding economies and balancing the York County budget can be boiled down to one point……Let's balance the budget on the backs of our teachers and other county employees. After all, if we still have one of the highest rated school systems in the state and have one of the lowest per capita expenditures for student in the Hampton Roads area, we must be paying them too much. If York County still has the dedicated employees who make the county a very safe and desirable place to live, let's see if we can change that by again not providing pay raises, reducing their benefits, and making everyone do more for less money.

I think a reasonable tax increase is a small price to pay for maintaining our highly rated school system and other outstanding county services and facilities that most of us use and depend on.

John Oppenhuizen

Yorktown

Polluted strategy

The proposed 100 percent rate increase for sewage treatment services for the residentsa of Newport News implemented by the EPA to clean up the Chesapeake Bay is an outrage.

Money is already too tight.

The real polution is in the psyche of the scientists, bleeding hearts and ureaucrats who, through their distorted perception of glloom and doom, tend to burden the popoplace with usless inflation.